Can Beaufort Co. school board learn to get along? Here’s the plan for fixing issues
Four months after a Beaufort County school board member wrote that board meetings “are the worst times in my current life,” the board has come up with a plan to fix interpersonal relations — and it seems different from a disastrous attempt to do so in 2018.
Board member Richard Geier and district attorney Wendy Cartledge came up with Tuesday’s proposal for a “board culture and interpersonal relations meeting,” which they say meets FOIA regulations.
The meeting would be held during a weekend in August and would be open to the public for in-person attendance and public comments, Geier said. However, the meeting would not be livestreamed. Instead, members of the public would have to request a recording of the meeting.
The board voted 9-0-1 to approve the August meeting, with William Smith abstaining to “sleep on spending money on this” and David Striebinger absent. Details of the meeting, including the date and location, will be published in the next 30 days.
Geier was careful to say that the meeting would not be a retreat and likely would be held at the University of South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island campus.
But he did suggest paying two facilitators — James Knight, the vice president of diversity and inclusion for Cleveland’s St. Edward High School, and Isaiah Walker, the president of Philadelphia’s KIPP Philadelphia Preparatory Academy — to lead the meeting.
Both currently work with district principals over Zoom to discuss school culture, Geier said, giving them a “unique, objective view of the culture of different schools in the district.”
“Some topics of discussion will be heavy for some,” he said while discussing Knight’s curriculum and writing on “cultural humility” workshops. “It’s important to provide a safe space where comments are kept in the group.”
When asked if he thought creating that safe space in a public meeting would be possible, Geier said, “We don’t have a choice.”
“Will it stifle some things? Not if we do it the way the facilitators want,” he said. “... We can’t violate FOIA.”
Cartledge said that both men would be paid a $500 speaking fee plus be reimbursed for the cost of their flights and paid a per diem rate for meals and lodging. For one day, the maximum rate each man could be paid for lodging is $182, and the maximum meal reimbursement they could receive is $50 each.
Including flights, this would put the full cost of the facilitators around or under $2,500, about a 10th of what the board paid in 2018 for what some called a “marriage counselor.”
Past attempts at a facilitator
In 2018, the board approved up to $8,000 to hire outside consultant Wayne Worner to lead one-on-one interviews with board members and then-superintendent Jeff Moss. Those interviews were not made public.
That decision had been made during a period of constant divide on the board following Moss’ 2017 evaluation and a closed-session meeting during which one board member called the cops on another for allegedly threatening him.
The board’s retreat did not go well. Three board members did not participate, leading to the cancellation of a second planned retreat, and the board spent $18,000 on an outside law firm to hire Worner in the process, bringing the full taxpayer bill to $22,000.
The board and the school district look very different than they did in 2018, with eight new trustees and a new superintendent.
However, trust issues still remain.
‘Lengthy meetings and personality differences’
In a board self-evaluation completed in December and presented to the public in a February meeting, members identified disorganized public meetings and a lack of trust as their biggest issues.
The responses to the survey were anonymous but included the following:
“Some members are in constant contact with a few citizens of their choosing during the meetings which is inappropriate and inequitable for the public at large. It also interferes with the decision-making authority bestowed upon the board as a whole.”
“Lengthy meetings and personality differences lead to inefficient conversations.”
“Listen more, pay attention and don’t ask questions that have already been answered.”
“Board meetings are the worst times in my current life. I have yet to leave a board meeting in a good mood. Some members of the board cannot control themselves emotionally. Some board members have no respect for the authority given to the board chair.”
Despite internal complaints, the board members gave themselves an “effective” average rating on all five categories.
The board’s newest members, Ingrid Boatright and Angela Middleton, had not been sworn in when the survey was given and did not participate. Additionally, two of the board’s then-members chose not to participate.
Board chairwoman Christina Gwozdz, who opted out of the 2018 retreat, said, “We have to remember we are the governing body for the school district, and it’s very important we function as the governing body.”
“My most important interest on this board is student achievement, hands-down,” she said. “And I think this is going to better the achievement of our students.”